Representing a Future With Unconditional Basic Income: Capitalist Realism and the Social Construction of (Un)Feasibility

Amid deteriorating labour market conditions and increasing income insecurity, Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) has been a widely debated proposal for guaranteeing a dignified future for all. Yet, in a context of pervasive capitalist realism, perceptions of UBI’s unfeasibility constitute a major barrier to its political realisation. While central to public debate, previous literature has paid little attention to how such perceptions are socially constructed. Drawing on integrative frameworks combining social representations theory on collective futures with the pragmatic sociology of engagements, this study examines how people reason and argue about the future, and how this shapes the social construction of UBI’s (un)feasibility. Based on a pragmatic discourse analysis of 26 interviews conducted in the Basque Country, we identified three main representations of the future: (1) the collapse scenario, (2) the strategic planning scenario, and (3) the realisable utopia scenario. Within each representation, participants proleptically mobilised distinct images of the past, as well as different modes of engaging with the future, to advance specific political objectives concerning the implementation of UBI. We discuss the implications for understanding how collective futures are socially represented and engaged with, offering insights for resisting the imaginative constraints of capitalist realism.